ADB warns of environmental threat to Asian growth
© 2000 Reuters Limited
September 22, 2000
Story by Alan Wheatley, Asian Economics Correspondent
TOKYO - Asia can kiss rapid economic growth goodbye within a generation unless governments start to tackle the region's mounting environmental problems, an Asian Development Bank (ADB) expert warned yesterday.
Tahir Qadri, a senior environment specialist with the ADB, said nothing short of a policy revolution is needed if Asia is to adopt an environmentally sustainable approach to development in place of its current "grow now and clean up later" ways.
"I don't think the point of no return has come yet, but if we don't do anything about it and if we don't recognise our failures, then in another 20-25 years we could be in a really grim situation," Qadri said in an interview.
Hong Kong's worsening air pollution, choking smoke from frequent forest fires in Indonesia and an avalanche of garbage that killed more than 200 slum-dwellers in Manila in July are just a few recent examples of why the ADB judges Asia's environment to be "at great risk".
The region is losing one percent of its forests a year and more than half of its wetlands have already disappeared.
Twelve of the 15 cities in the world with the highest air pollution are in Asia.
To hammer home its fear that neglect of the environment will eventually bring Asia's growth engine to a stuttering halt, the ADB is launching a new publication with specific recommendations for policy-makers in its developing member countries.
"First and foremost, governments must realise that the environment is not a dessert to be enjoyed once the main course has been served," a draft of "Asian Environment Outlook 2001" says.
The ADB fears the environmental strain of rapid growth will become intolerable, slowing economic expansion, unless policymakers act swiftly to alleviate the impact of growing pollution and urbanisation.
"Equitable and sustained economic growth, poverty eradication, fiscal reform, and every other socioeconomic goal depend on a reliable flow of natural resources and a productive, resilient natural environment," the draft report says.
The report is withering in its condemnation of governments for their "glaring absence of political and economic commitment" to environmental issues.
"Indeed, government policies are a major driving force behind the misuse of the environment," the draft report says.
"Excessive reliance on centralised, top-down approaches,...weak enforcement, corruption, and underfunding of environmental initiatives all worsen environmental problems."
TERRIBLE IGNORANCE
Qadri said the Manila-based ADB could at least help to end what he called a terrible ignorance of environmental issues in most of Asia, even among the policy-making elite.
"The level of awareness is so low that they do not make the link between development and the environment and poverty reduction," he said. Only Taiwan and Singapore deserved credit for pursuing integrated policies that do recognise the link.
More than half of all Asians live on less than a dollar a day, but Qadri dismissed the idea that environmental protection is a luxury the region can not yet afford as ill-founded.
As the Manila garbage slide showed, it was poor slum-dwellers who suffer most uncontrolled urbanisation; and it was poor peasants driven from the land who paid the heaviest price when get-rich-quick entrepreneurs set fire to more than one million hectares of Indonesian forests in 1997, he said.
Qadri is hoping that, as in the West, pressure groups will gradually find their voice and hold governments accountable for their environmental policies. The process could take 20 years.
"The situation is not hopeless yet and if, in concert with other donors, we can influence policy reform, enhance institutional capacity, raise awareness through education and empower civil society, we have a chance - certainly," he said.
"But in the absence of these, I wouldn't be very optimistic. In that case, the consequences for Asian growth are obvious."